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EUROPEAN Fisheries Minister Maria Damanaki has this week started on a hectic round of meetings and visits to sell her Common Fisheries Policy reform message.
Today she is in Paris meeting with Nathalie Kosciusko Morizet, the French Ecology, Transport and Sustainable Development Minister which will be followed by a meeting with French maritime and fishing interests and later with the French Parliament.
Further meetings are planned with Belgian and other European fishing and maritime figureheads, ending with a high level meeting on the future of the Black Sea.
She said: "As I said when presenting the proposals for the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy at the European Economic and Social Committee, last week, sustainability is non negotiable as a target; without that there will be no reform.
"I want to go for sustainability as a whole. I am talking about environmental sustainability by moving to Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2015 and phasing out discards.
I am talking about social sustainability, because with moving to MSY and phasing out discards we will build up healthy fish stocks in our waters and this in itself is the best way to increase our fishermen's income. It is an investment into our fishermen's future."
She added: I will continue discussing the various aspects of the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy this week. In the framework of the same visit, I will address the Commission's maritime policy initiatives, in particular Maritime Spatial Planning and Integrated Maritime Surveillance, as well as the upcoming Strategy for the Atlantic, meeting with industry representatives from the French Maritime Cluster on the potential of sea-related sectors to contribute to growth and job creation
Next month Belgian fishermen will be collecting marine litter in the Ostende harbour, as part of the event organized in the framework of the Waste Free Oceans initiative. Commissioner Damanaki said she will take the opportunity to renew her commitment to support innovative solutions for the issue of marine litter and encourage this European initiative, which brings together industry, scientists and fishermen with the aim of reducing floating marine debris on Europe’s coastlines.
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